NanoDimension

THE SITUATION

NanoDimension is a venture capital firm based in Europe and the United States that specializes in nanotechnology. NanoDimension invests in companies that use break-through nanotechnology to solve critical problems and can become global leaders in the life science, electronic, and energy sectors. The firm has over $150 million
in capital under management and recently started investing out of its second fund.

NanoDimension was communicating with its Limited Partners (LPs) first through email and then, later, through a custom-built, password-protected server that the firm maintained in-house. Just keeping the server up and running took valuable time away from more important work. “With the launch of our second fund,” explained Eric Moessinger, vice president in NanoDimension’s Silicon Valley office, “we knew our reporting needs were going to become much more complex. Our General Partner wanted something that was easier to use, both for us and for our investors.”

THE SOLUTION

NanoDimension wanted a hosted solution, but it felt that consumer services like Dropbox wouldn’t provide the security and protection it needed. “Our research online and our conversations with people in the industry pointed to Intralinks as an excellent choice,” commented Eric. “Intralinks for Alternative Investments is an established solution in the alternative asset space, and Limited Partners are familiar with it.”

What really attracted NanoDimension to Intralinks was its ease of use and depth of functionality. “Our General Partner would no longer have to worry about maintaining a site and the server to support it, plus there’s some really nice additional functionality that a service like Intralinks provides that we did not previously have.” This included the automatic emailing of reports and the ability to track and see who has accessed the site and what materials they have downloaded.

NanoDimension was initially concerned it would be too small a company to make good use of Intralinks, but discussions with Intralinks made it clear that, no matter what its size, Intralinks considered NanoDimension an important customer. “They were able to meet us in a way that worked well for everybody in terms of features and cost.”

THE BENEFITS

Intralinks’ ease of use was an immediate win for NanoDimension. Eric estimated that using Intralinks has reduced the time spent managing investor reporting
by 50 percent. “Our core business is to generate value for our LPs through our investments, so anything we can do to reduce time spent on administrative activities, making them quick and easy to do while making our LPs’ lives easier as well, is fantastic. Intralinks allows us to focus more on the core business.”

Eric highlighted three areas where Intralinks was saving time. One, NanoDimension no longer has to deal with maintenance of the site, the server, or the software. Two, Intralinks automatically sends out notification to LPs; once the system is set up, all NanoDimension has to do is upload the file and the emails are sent. Three, with all the materials now in one easily accessible place, NanoDimension doesn’t have to field as many inbound requests for information, because the LPs can just get the information from Intralinks.

The Intralinks support was another major benefit for NanoDimension. “We’ve been extraordinarily surprised by how good the support is,” concluded Eric. “That’s been the highlight of working with Intralinks. It has really been first rate.”